Custom Customer & Choirs of Angels - Letterpress

Now that my fireplace is ready for Winter,

Jen can finally print Holiday cards for our favorite custom customer. Akustiks is a fancy company of acousticians who design the architectural acoustics for theaters and concert halls.

And, correct me if I’m wrong, but a group of acousticians were actually hired by God to assure the residents of Bethlehem that His choir of angels sounded better than some music pouring out of the earbuds crammed in my earholes.

Despite my lo-fi circumstances, I created a new card. Only 38 shopping days till Christmas!

As my eyeball filled with blood,

I thought to myself, “should I have someone redo my hearth,

or stop working on our 2017 catalog?”

I decided to both because I’m an over-achiever.

AND THEN I wrote a card

because it’s cheaper than therapy.

This is the face of a girl who got a globe for Christmas the year before. A girl determined to prove to everyone how much she needed; NAY, deserved the Lite-Brite. 

Santa would never make that mistake again. 

This determination guided the girl for a lifetime, nothing would stand between her and her singleminded fixations.

NOTHING.

One of the latest obstacles were some pesky illustrated creatures who needed to be removed so one frog could fulfill his God-given right to sing Wayne Newton.

And sing he did. 

Yours for only $4.50! (SOON.)

Usually bragging is reserved for Facebook, family newsletters, and prison cells. But showering has made me feel fancy and solitary confinement has made me such a blabbermouth!
SO behold our new bathroom:Millie wanted to show off the bathroom but she isn’t tall enough to open the backdoor.Too bad we re-screened that door!

Did that squirrel even know he/she was the color of my new grout?? I’m kidding! I’m sure he/she did!

Speaking of Dove Gray™ grout, (WERE WE??) I made a new card. Intern #1 said it was Mom Humor. I told her to go to her room.

Have I mentioned how much Millie The Dog barks at anything and everything within a 500 foot perimeter of our house? Mailman, delivery-person, solicitors, neighbors, guests, the kids, trick-or-treaters, my mom… We’ve talked a lot about it and she feels super responsible for alerting us – I told her that we really don’t need that kind of help, BUT WE DID. SHE WAS RIGHT. SHE’S ALWAYS RIGHT.

SO, my driveway was full of a dumpster filled with bathroom remodel debris, Millie was having a staycation with a friend, AND SOME JERK CLIPPED THE LOCK ON OUR SHED AND STOLE MY BIKE.And he threw the lock in the dirt like some sort of criminal.

AND THEN, the loser (no judgment) tried to sell MY bike on a site called OfferUp.com.

But he is as slippery as an eel wrapped in a banana peel, and disappeared INTO THE NIGHT. Police have been alerted, prayers to St. Anthony have been said. I asked St. Anthony if he could forward my prayers onto the Patron Saint of Stolen Goods and he told me to go back to sleep and stop Googling escutcheons for the new bathroom.

FINE.

While I wait for my miracle, I spend days mindlessly migrating ALL of the content from the Zeichen Press site to THE NEW Zeichen Press site. DON’T WORRY, you won’t even be able to tell the difference because we wanted to spend a lot of money on something that nobody notices.

OH, and Jen got some new/old cutsso I made a Father’s Day Card out of that little man.BACK TO MIGRATING/WEEPING.

I did the math and figured out that two toilets MINUS one toilet EQUALS one toilet. And one shower MINUS one shower EQUALS zero showers.

I desperately yelled that equation to the boys during my bathroom demo, but they pretended not to hear me.I only gave birth to them to provide me with free manual labor. Ha! Who’s laughing now, boys??

Anyway, who needs a shower??OR a bath??I barely do.

And as soon as all of my family and friends get back from being out of town for a month, they’ll tell you the same.

Here’s a new birthday card/fantasy:

Everyone celebrates Jenmas Eve differently.*I* like to go to Hot Plate SANS Jen to eat a Mexican Omelet surrounded by a gallery of paint-by-number masterpieces.

YEARS AGO, Jen (carefully) slaved away over *her* masterpiece and it sits atop a shelf of knick-knacks in Cape Cod. 

She was so dedicated! 

I bet she knew that someday I’d repay her in birthday cards.

My life is one big Sexy Action Thriller. And being a bouncer at the Double Deuce in Missouri when I was only ten years old was pretty intense. Sure, I had great hair and sure I had a winning smile, and sure I always made breaking up bar fights and drinking black coffee look sexy. That’s just who I am.

Truth is, practicing tai chi in your brother’s sweatpants and running a letterpress design studio with cards SOLD AROUND THE WORLD, takes discipline and dedication.

Live Wires, our New Zealand distributor, knows this and sent us a token of appreciation.

I think they’re supposed to be for tea but I already used mine for sopping up blood from a letterpress-related (packing tape dispenser) injury. Thanks Helen Harvey!

After I bandaged my wound, I made this:

Dinah told me about her crazy dream!

She said we left her for two weeks with Tib and Jen so we could go to Cape Cod, and she had a fever and hair-balls. She said it was actually more like a nightmare — poor thing!

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that her nightmare was real… that we did leave her for two weeks with Tib and Jen.

But she isn’t alone. When she reads the blog, she’ll find out about our scary flight home. The airline warned us, but people just do whatever they want.The other passengers made calls on their flip-phones, watched who-knows-what on portable televisions, drove their remote-controlled cars up and down the aisle, talked to each other on walkie-talkies, and blasted music on transistor radios! Meanwhile we, The Law-Abiding, were stuck in the teeny-tiny bathroom, forced to take hysterical selfies.BUT, we managed to land safely, no thanks to all of that recklessness. I will NOT be giving them my latest Thank You Card.